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DNR Releases 2,200 Historic Images

A July 1973 fish boil at the Norski Lodge.

Looking at the first group of 500 historic Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources photos that were recently posted online, the first line from L.P. Hartley’s novel The Go Between comes to mind: “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”

For example, cars looked like tanks, wool and high boots worn outside the trousers were outdoor fashion statements of the day, unless you were a lady, then fishing in fancy hat and white gloves was fine. Cigarettes were part of life, as evidenced by butts in mouths, or packs of Chesterfields on tables next to ashtrays.

But other than changes in technology, fashion and cigarette smoking, the people in these historic photos are doing the same things we do today – fishing, hunting, boating, hiking, playing.

Fans of historic photos have a new treasure trove of material taken by DNR photographers.

“I wish we could talk to the ones who took the photos,” said Kathy Kahler, a staff writer for Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine who has been tasked with picking the photos and entering the who, what, when and where so they can be posted through the UW Digital Collections Center.

The Wisconsin Conservation Department and its successor, the Department of Natural Resources, had staff photographers documenting the outdoor culture of the state up until 2007 when Bob Queen retired, making him the last DNR photographer.

Mother and children at campsite at Potawatomi State Park in July 1938.

Kahler said plenty of DNR employees continue to document the outdoors with shots on cameras and camera phones, but no one is doing it as they did back in the day.

“These photos are all catalogued and mounted on 4×6 cards and each one has information – some more detailed than others – who took the photo, date taken, where it was taken,” she said.

“Nowadays we’re lucky if we can get information about who took a photo.”

Entering all that information into the database is the tedious part of the project for Kahler. “The fun part is picking which ones I’m going to put out there, and then seeing them afterwards. That’s really thrilling.”

The first batch of 500 photos include three Door County shots – one from Potowatami State Park in the 1930s, another of a ski jump meet at Peninsula State Park, and a 1970s fish boil at Norksi Lodge. The first 500 also contain pictures of celebrities (journalist Edward R. Murrow and vaudeville entertainer Gypsy Rose Lee fishing, separately), politicians (Herbert Hoover and various governors fishing and hunting), and sports stars (Ted Williams and Bart Starr), as well as a whole slew of just regular folk doing the things Wisconsin is known for.

One of the surprises of these first 500 historic photos is the number of women enjoying the outdoors.

Kahler points out that one of the early photographers was a woman by the name of Dorothy Ferguson.

“The fact that one of the early DNR photographers was a woman helped to raise that awareness and document it,” she said. “I think it also illustrates that women have for many decades had a natural curiosity and love for the outdoors, just like men. There are many photos of women fishing, boating, swimming, hunting, skating, skiing, hiking, rock climbing, etc.”

When Kahler has finished her task in May 2016, there will be a total of 2,200 historic Wisconsin digitized photos available.

All photos are public records and available free of charge to copy and redistribute in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially. They are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License. That means if someone uses them, they must credit “Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources” and if they remix, transform or build upon the material, they may not distribute the modified material.

The images area available on the UW Digital Collections Center website at uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/WI/DNRPhotos.